


Running With Wolves

by imaginary_iby



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-25
Updated: 2012-08-25
Packaged: 2017-11-12 20:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_iby/pseuds/imaginary_iby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life in Beacon Hills might seem like an endless dash from one catastrophe to the next, but every now and then quiet moments do arise.  A look into the day to day lives of Derek and Stiles, as they learn to share a bed and adjust to the quirks of being in a relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running With Wolves

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into the world of Teen Wolf fic, so please be gentle with me! I'm still getting to know the characters and the feel of the show, beyond the basic _afasdbfaskby!_

Utterly exhausted, Stiles tripped absentmindedly down the stairs. In the comfort of his own home, away from the prying eyes of mischievous teenaged werewolves, he could quietly admit to himself that he was perhaps not the most graceful, early in the morning. 

With a mighty yawn, he burrowed his way into his wooly blue jumper, only missing two steps as he briefly but inevitably got his head stuck in one of the long sleeves. With a _humph_ of indignation, he managed to navigate his way out, popping his head through its allotted slot with a triumphant _aha!_

The last four steps were pranced over, and he stuck the landing with dramatic flair before ricocheting his way into the kitchen.

…where the entire pack was waiting, taking up every inch of space and chomping steadily through three different kinds of cereal and two loaves of bread. Suspicious tendrils of smoke were wafting up from the toaster, and splashes of milk dotted the bench. Every available surface was covered in either pack-member or breakfast paraphernalia.

Stunned, Stiles took in the scene before him. They were all bleary-eyed and chattering and chomping away, and Stiles could only suppose that his battle with his jumper had distracted him from their general aura of chaos. “Er…” he eloquently offered in response to their collective stares. “What’re you all doing here?”

Lydia rolled her eyes, but kindly passed him the toy surprise from the cereal box she was holding. “We’re here for our training.”

Stiles crinkled his brow curiously, tearing the stretchy plastic that ensnared his prized toy with his silly human teeth. “The only thing,” he broke off as he gummied his way through the _do not put in mouth_ warning on the plastic. “The only thing that I have on the agenda today is housework, so unless you’re here to learn the fine art of cleaning gutters, I’m afraid I can’t much help you.”

From his perch on the kitchen table, Jackson huffed and handed over a pair of scissors. “Here. Don’t be such an animal.”

Stiles schooled his expression into one of mock-delight. “Look at that, Jackson made a funny.” Nevertheless, he snipped open the package and promptly began to assemble what looked like a purple plastic dinosaur. He could feel the weight of Scott’s stare, and once the dinosaur was fully formed he sighed indulgently and handed it over. “Yes yes, here you go, Scott, you can have it.”

Scott looked momentarily embarrassed, but upon ascertaining that Allison was merely amused, he quickly snatched up the dinosaur and began to work its little legs back and forth.

Stiles turned once more to the room at large, but he didn’t fail to notice out of the corner of his eye the way that Scott was walking the dinosaur up and down his own arm. _Honestly._ “Again, I ask, what are you all doing here?”

Jackson’s brow crinkled in irritation, as if Stiles was being deliberately obtuse. “Derek’s upstairs in your bed.”

Stiles’ eyes flickered involuntarily towards the ceiling, where, yes, Derek was currently dozing. “…yes? But what’s that got to do with the price of eggs? Strange expression, that, did you know that in Australia they ask about the price of fish?”

Jackson looked primed and ready for some serious snark about just where, exactly, Stiles could shove his fish. Fortunately, Scott was well trained in the art of parsing Stiles’ sentences and he held up a hand for calm.

Once the room had settled, Lydia tutted impatiently. “I told you, we’re here for our training. Who usually trains us?” 

As she was beginning to clean the kitchen, Stiles found it within himself to rise above her tone. The pieces slotted into place, and once again he eyed the ceiling. “Well, Derek, obvious…ah, I see. And you’re all too chicken to wake him up.”

A trio of chuckles was his only response, and it was then that Stiles realized that Erica, Isaac and Boyd were sitting on the floor, leaning against the far cupboards and passing around a box of crackers. Isaac raised an eyebrow. “Seeing Derek naked in the middle of the forest after the change is one thing. Seeing him naked in your bed after a wild night of sex is another thing entirely. Thanks, but no thanks.”

Stiles merely grinned, choosing wisely, (see: uncharacteristically), not to clear up the finer details of his sex life with the room at large. “Ugh, alright, wait here.” He scooted out of the room, whirled to a stop at the foot of the stairs, and then hurtled back to where the pack was still lazing about. “And I want all of this cleaned up before I get back!”

A hop, skip and a jump made short work of the stairs, and Stiles flopped onto his bed with an _oomph_ and a grumble from Derek. He poked a finger into the warm muscle of Derek’s back, his thumb momentarily distracted by the whorls of Derek’s tattoo. This earned him another grumble, and with little fuss Derek rolled right on top of him, warm and weighty, an odd mix of comforting and constricting.

Stiles immediately felt jittery, an itch spreading under his skin telling him to stretch his legs, perform an action, _any_ action, even if that action served no purpose. He curled his toes, energy coiling tighter, the itch building momentum.

With a snuffle, Derek rolled back off him, pressing close and sharing his warmth, but also deliberately giving Stiles room to move. “ _Hhmmm sorry._ ” He pushed his face further into his pillow, sleepily mumbling, “don’t forget, you need to…” The rest of his words were swallowed by the linen, as Derek was apparently distracted by the delightful scents of their bed. Nevertheless, he waved his hand in the general vicinity of the dresser.

Stiles, relieved at being free to move, immediately stretched, canting his hips up off the bed and lifting his hands to the ceiling. He made a happy purring noise, held the position for a few seconds and then relaxed, moving to roll on top of Derek. Two could play at that game.

“Gee, thanks boss, where would I be without you? Hey, I saw that!” He inched up Derek’s body, pressing their noses together and taking in the angles of Derek’s face, the sweep of his lashes against his cheeks. “Don’t think I didn’t see that. Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

Derek snorted indelicately. “My eyes are shut. Also, you roll your eyes at me about forty times a day. Smart-ass.”

Stiles tutted. “ _I’m_ allowed to roll my eyes, _I’m_ a teenager.”

Derek pushed up off the mattress, hooking an arm around Stiles’ waist and shifting them onto their sides, their legs tangling together with a will of their own. “Oh yeah, sure, tell me all about how you’re a teenager whilst I’m naked and the entire pack is downstairs.” If his tone was rebuking, it was certainly tempered by the way he was pressing warm, absent-minded kisses to the curve of Stiles’ jaw.

Stiles moaned, half exasperation, half pleasure. “If you knew that they were here, _mmmm_ , if… if… if you knew that they were here, why did you stay in bed?”

Derek moved his lips down, tugging the blue wool of Stiles’ jumper to the side so that he could gain access to more pale skin. “I was waiting for you to come back.”

Stiles smiled. “I think history has taught us that my days tend not to happen like that.” Nevertheless, warmth began to unfurl in his chest, a little bloom of happiness. Just as he began to slide his hand down the warm plane of Derek’s back with particular intent, a variety of noises rent the air. His phone beeped loudly, something crashed spectacularly downstairs, and last but not least a car door slammed shut from the direction of the drive. 

Stiles flailed up from the mattress, a tangle of limbs. He scooted towards the door, changed his mind; he scooted towards his phone, changed his mind; he scooted towards the dresser where his medicine lay, changed his mind; and then he scooted towards the window before realizing at the last second that he’d elbowed Derek in the chest. Drawn in a million directions at once, he conked out on the mattress.

“Sorry, sorry,” he hissed, working to ease off Derek’s body.

Derek grunted, brushing the apology aside with a wave of his hand. “Yes, that’s your dad. Scott dropped a plate but Allison is making him sweep it up. I don’t know about your phone, but I’m willing to bet it’s Jackson texting you to hurry up. He gets to be target practice, today.”

Stiles nodded, filing away Derek’s assessment of the situation and shaping his morning accordingly. “Okay, okay, medicine first, then phone, then yell at friends. It’s a plan.”

Derek snorted. “Oh yeah, because our plans always work out so well.”

\-----  
\-----

Wrinkling his nose, Stiles inspected the patchwork ceiling of the Hale house with an air of gentle exasperation. He was completely lost in his thoughts, several streams of contemplation running concurrently: the decrepit state of the roof; whether or not he’d made the right choice in putting jam on his toast; what to do about the squeaky noise that his Jeep was making and where, exactly, his lost wallet might be hiding.

He took a bite of his breakfast, settling on a general sense of happiness regarding all things strawberry, and was in the process of popping the last morsel into his mouth when a fat droplet of rain splattered down through one of the many holes in the roof. It landed, rather insultingly, right on his last bite, mixing with the jam and getting the bread all soggy. 

There was a moment of stunning calm, as if nature was taking a deep breath, and then suddenly it began to pour, the wild roar of heavy rain drowning out the everyday whispers and creaks of the forest. Only a hard-won instinct to respect his less than gazelle-like nature tempered his immediate desire to fling himself to a dry patch of house. The charred floorboards beneath his feet had darkened within seconds, saturated with rainwater, and the last thing he needed was to make an idiot out of himself by slipping down the stairs to his doom.

Flinging the now thoroughly drenched nugget of toast to the floor, (where he had no doubt that the birds would find it), he sighed. It was the sigh of a boy who was both amused and defeated, all wrapped up into one bedraggled package.

Suddenly, the familiar rumblings of the Camaro’s engine broke through the roar of the rain. Drawn to it like a creature of habit, Stiles picked his way carefully across the shredded and slippery floor, working his way down the stairs and out to the front door. He rested against the frame, waiting, and then a few seconds later the sleek black angles of Derek’s car emerged from the trees and rolled to a muddy stop.

Stiles, now an old-hand at living with werewolves, did not bother to wait until he was in the car to begin speaking. 

“There is weather _in_ the house,” he grumbled, trying to minimize his flailing as he slipped a little on the soggy grass. “Shut up, you didn’t see that.” 

From within the car, Derek’s lips quirked slightly.

“Weather is _not_ supposed to be _inside_ the house!” This was said with an enthusiastic wrenching open of the passenger-side door. “It’s supposed to be _on top_ of the house. Maybe even _around_ the house, if it’s a windy day. But not inside.”

With little finesse, Stiles plonked down into the comfortable seat and caught Derek’s gaze. “Seriously. Do you not remember the other day? It was so foggy, we practically woke up in the clouds. I should not have to bring a rain-coat to bed.” When it became apparent that Derek had no intention of replying, Stiles lifted his chin in challenge and called upon the most devious expression within his rather extensive repertoire.

Derek, something of an expert on Stiles’ facial tells, sensed what was coming. He jabbed out a finger in warning. “No, don’t you dar-” his words rolled over into a growl, as Stiles shook himself off like a happy puppy fresh from his bath.

Water flew everywhere, flecking against the windscreen and over the dash, speckling the seats and, to Stiles’ endless amusement, splattering Derek.

Derek breathed deeply through his nose in search of calm, scowling as Stiles turned the heat up. “You do know that you’re the only person who could possibly get away with that, right?”

With a grin, Stiles leaned over the gear-stick, fully intent on licking away a droplet of water that was trickling down Derek’s cheek. “Why else do you think I did it?”

Derek raised an eyebrow, as was his way. “Because you like to… to…” he trailed off, lost in thought as Stiles nuzzled at the curve of his jaw. “Because you like to push your luck?” With a hum, Derek turned his head, caught Stiles’ bottom lip between his teeth. He worried the soft skin there for a second, before pulling back to press his nose into the curve of Stiles’ shoulder.

\-----  
\-----

Stiles tried desperately to resist the urge to toss and turn. He didn’t really want to draw attention to himself, lost as he was in the thin layer of tension that coated the room, but in the end he couldn’t deny the urge to kick out a leg.

Beside him, Derek shifted, equally as uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.” He said this softly to the ceiling, staring up at it as if it was trying to murder him.

Stiles nodded, a quick, curt indication of understanding. “I know. Yeah. Me too. I’m sorry too. For. You know.”

It was the work of but a moment for arms and legs to tangle back up, seeking warmth and comfort. Derek’s breath was a reassuring puff against Stiles’ shoulder, and Stiles tried to settle his thoughts to the beat of each exhalation. “Sex-ed class didn’t really cover this.” 

Derek resisted the urge to huff, settling instead for raising an eyebrow in amusement. “You mean your teachers didn’t prepare you for how to mix ADHD, sex, and an Alpha werewolf? Imagine my surprise.”

Stiles scrunched up his nose. “It kind of unsettles me when you’re painfully sarcastic, just fyi. But… yeah. My brain plus your instincts… well, we certainly hit the complicated jackpot. Neither one of us can really help it, I know.”

Silence descended once more, and Stiles tried to content himself with tapping out a slow and steady pattern on the small of Derek’s back. Embarrassment lingered, but was fading fast, and in the end he couldn’t keep quiet. “I think. See. I think… you have this instinct to take charge. This… animal, alpha instinct. And I like it. I _enjoy_ it. I do, because _hello_ just look at you, and _wow_ you know what you’re doing. But then I’m just… I feel like _I’m_ not doing much. And then I can’t help it, this little spark of my brain flares out and latches onto something else, like, I don’t know, a possible alternative translation in the bestiary. And it’s not that I don’t _want_ to be in the moment with you, I do, but then suddenly I _need_ to follow up on my other train of thought and then, well. Ugh. Just. Ugh.” Frustrated and out of breath, he wrenched the pillow out from beneath his head and dropped it over his face.

“And the thing is,” he continued, voice muffled from beneath the pillow. “ _You’re_ only following _your_ brain, too. Your instinct, your animal. Your brain is telling you _how_ to have sex. It’s telling you what you like and _when_ you feel like it. The darker it gets, the more you want it. But the later it gets, the more my meds wear off. So. Yay. Well done us.”

In the quiet of the room, safe with just the two of them, Derek let out a little puff of laughter.

Stiles, surprised, lifted the pillow off and peered up at Derek, tilting his head to the side in a startlingly wolf-like manner. “What?”

Derek barked out another soft laugh, pitching himself up onto an elbow to peer down at Stiles.

“What, what?” Stiles insisted, bordering on indignant.

“You remind me of a wolf, when you turn your head like that. Whenever Scott gets stuck up a tree, he tilts his head to the side like the world is just a bit too confusing for him to handle.”

Stiles snorted, but it wasn’t without heart. “Bless his cotton socks. Strange expression, that, nobody quite knows-”

Derek, fearing a rant of gargantuan proportions was in his future, ducked down to kiss Stiles full on the mouth. Usually he let Stiles’ endless chatter wash over him, soothe him; in fact more often than not, he actively enjoyed listening to the random and ridiculous things that escaped Stiles’ mind to be unleashed upon the world. (Though he would confess to that only under pain of death). A ramble about quaint phrases was stretching it a little too far, though, considering only minutes prior things had been taking a naked-shaped turn.

It wasn’t long before he was fully invested in the kiss, fully invested in the way Stiles’ fingers slid into his hair, gently tugging this way and that. Just as he was contemplating kissing a path down to Stiles’ hip, his ears picked up the whistling scratch of an incoming text-message as it rattled through the radio speakers – and sure enough, a second later Stiles’ phone beeped. He could feel Stiles jolt beneath him, his eyes scanning the room for his phone.

Stiles grumbled, and Derek, sensing that the moment was once again lost, rolled back off him and gave him a gentle push towards the phone. “Go on, check, it’ll drive you mad otherwise.”

The blinding light of the screen hurt Derek’s eyes, so he tugged the blanket up over his face. After a few minutes the room fell to darkness once more, and the bed dipped, signaling Stiles’ return. 

“Okay, I have an idea,” he announced, pulling the covers down to rest them over Derek’s nose. “Maybe we should bring the phone to bed, so I can just check it. Or maybe we should turn it off. Mine, yours, everything off. Laptops off. Everything. Or. But, ugh. There’s still stuff outside, dogs and cars and whatever. Maybe I could wear ear-muffs? Yeah, because _that’s_ totally sexy. It is possible to have brain ear-muffs? Noise cancelling brain-muffs.” He flopped onto the mattress, the epitome of despondent. “Life is never like the movies, is it. Shouldn’t we be having stunningly attractive and wildly passionate werewolf sex? Well, _you’re_ stunningly attractive, I’m just kind of weird looking, but still, you can pull it off for the both of us.”

Derek growled. He wasn’t really one for giving compliments. He just didn’t factor them into his day to day life, wasn’t really the sort to spend his time fretting over a person’s self-esteem. And, to be perfectly frank, he’d never really been with anybody who had actually needed such reassurances. Kate Argent hadn’t exactly been crippled by a lack of confidence. 

Nevertheless, Stiles’ opinion of himself worried Derek sometimes. He was slowly growing more and more comfortable with the deep and powerful instinct that told him to treat Stiles differently, to care for him differently, to worry about him differently - and let Stiles do the same in return. Oh, he hadn’t had a personality transplant, they were never going to be skipping through the daisies, but he allowed himself a brief moment to whisper, “stop being stupid.”

Well. It needed some work.

“One of these days you’ll stop being an idiot, and you’ll see yourself properly. The way I see you.” He paused, enjoying the blush that spread over Stiles’ cheeks. “And look, about the sex. We’ll try and… I don’t know, leave it for the morning, once your pills kick in. I’m a werewolf, I’m used to being ruled by time. We just need a bit of adjustment, that’s all.”

Practically exuding an aura of mischief, Stiles pounced.

\-----  
\-----

There was something oddly comforting about going for a midnight run with an Alpha werewolf. There was a strange sense of protection – so much of their lives were chaotic races from one disaster to the next, that it was nice to head out into the forest and set aside all worry. In the brief moments between supernatural catastrophe, life boiled down to putting one foot in front of the other.

Most of the time, Derek wouldn’t change. Rather, he’d trade in the leather for sweat pants and a t-shirt, slow his pace accordingly, and they’d run alongside each other. Stiles wondered many a time if Derek found it boring, doing things the good ol’ human way, but he never seemed to mind.

Stiles wasn’t much for coordination, but he could certainly run. All long limbs, he found it effortless to cover miles, gliding through the forest with ease, guided away from sneaky tree branches by Derek’s eyesight. It was one of the few times he fell quiet, enjoying the puff of his breath, the squelch of his shoes against leaves and mud, (Derek never made a noise), the creaks of the forest and the contact calls of night critters as they went about their business.

They usually went for a run when school and homework was driving him up the wall. He would sit at his desk for hours, scattering his mind between Chem and Lit and Egyptian history, thinking about all of it but focusing on none of it. He’d grow increasingly frustrated, jittery in his seat until Derek would tug him up by the hood of his jumper and drag him out of the house. 

Sometimes, if they were on the tail-end of a particularly bad day, Derek _would_ change. He’d mix things up a bit, jump from tree to tree or stalk off into the distance, make Stiles assess their surroundings, deduce where danger might be lurking.

It didn’t always work, but a lot of the time he could tackle his homework with renewed attention once they got home. If he didn’t get caught up in taking Derek’s clothes off, of course.

\-----  
\-----

In the earlier months of their relationship, when Stiles had first started spending the night at the Hale house, he’d been plagued by poor sleeping patterns. Even more so than usual. He normally dotted his night with sporadic periods of reading or researching or pottering around on the internet, white-bright screen illuminating every nook and cranny of his room.

Sleeping beside Derek, though, he had worried about his propensity for accidental noise and how poorly it blended with sensitive sleeping werewolf ears. And so for a long time, he’d rattled within his own skin, stuck to the bed like a bundle of raw nerves.

As things had become more comfortable, he had started to move around the house with greater ease. Every night taught him something new and interesting; he could boil the kettle, clink his spoon against his coffee cup, without waking Derek. He could creak up and down the stairs like a herd of elephants, and still Derek would be fast asleep. He could curl up on the worn couch beside the bed, nose pressed to his iPad as he worked his way through Angry Birds, and still Derek would sleep on.

Derek’s inclination to wake up seemed to be directly proportional to the level of mischief Stiles was trying to cook up. One memorable night saw him holding a glass of water above Derek’s face, fully intent on releasing a few drops onto an unsuspecting nose. Derek’s eyes had remained firmly shut, but his hand had shot out with startling speed, curling around Stiles' wrist and putting an end to all sneaky plans.

As time wore on, Stiles stopped thinking about it; he moved around and made noise as he saw fit, be it at his house or at Derek’s. To his immense surprise, he had slowly arrived at another discovery: if another member of the pack, or even a stranger, so much as sneezed within a ten mile radius, Derek was aware of it. His brow would crinkle, his ears would tense, and he would assess the sound and pay it due consideration. Stiles was grateful that wolves slept with both eyes shut, or else he was certain that Derek would have slept like some sort of murderous were-dolphin, lid open but pupil creepily vacant. _The thought alone._

Whenever the pack was sleeping over, Derek seemed to constantly track them in the back of his mind, always aware of where they were and what they were doing.

Tonight was such a night. The whispering pitter-patter of stealthy feet sailed right by Stiles’ ears, but Derek, dozing, was constantly turning his head this way and that.

Stiles trailed a finger along the curve of Derek’s collarbone. “Why do you do that?”

Derek’s lashes fluttered as he swept his eyes open. “I have to know where they are, what they’re doing.”

“But they’re your pack. Shouldn’t you… I don’t know, trust them?”

“It’s not a matter of trust.” Derek gripped his pillow, squashing it into a more pleasing shape. “I trust them, yes, but my unconscious mind responds to their strength. I have to be on the alert. And, I have to be on the alert for anything that might be trying to hurt them.”

Stiles frowned. “But… how come you’re not like that with me? I could operate heavy machinery under the influence and you’d still be fast asleep. Is it, what, because I’m human? I’m not a threat?”

Derek shook his head, curled an arm around Stiles’ middle to tug him closer, share in his warmth. “No, it’s because you’re you.”


End file.
